Recently an International Conference on “Steering Mature Business: A Leadership Challenge to Textile Industry” was held in Ahmedabad (India) – organised by Fibre2Fashion.com.

Amir Akhtar, CEO of Arvind Lifestyle Fabrics , made an interesting presentation ‘Denim Today and Tomorrow’ . Some excerpts from the presentation are given below :

World Denim Market

The world denim market is likely to grow continously for the next few years . However, supply is growing at a faster pace.

•World Jeans Market- 51.6$ Billion in 2007

•Expected to become 56.2$ billion by 2014

•Global demand growing at 5%, supply at 8%

•Global Denim fabric production in 2006- 2.7 billion mtrs.

•Over 50 percent of denim production is based in Asia with China, India, Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

•Between EU, US and China, 70% of world jeans consumption.

Estimated Share of Jeans Purchase By Region

North America : 39%

Western Europe : 20%

Japan & Korea : 10%

Rest of the world : 31%

No. Of Denim Mills Worldwide

Region

No. Of Denim Mills

Asia(China)

297

Asia(Other countries)

104

North America

9

Europe

41

Latin America

46

Africa

15

Australia

1

Total Denim Mills (World)

513

Note:The presentation also mentions the denim capacities in each of this region with a world total of 7.7 billion metres. However, I do not agree with these figures(they are grossly overstated) and hence have not reproduced them here.

Forecasts For Denim Market – 2010

In volume terms:

•the developed world will not grow at all, remaining at 1240 million units of jeans.

•the rest of the world will grow by 13 per cent to 783 million units.

•In total this means that world volume growth will be 4.8 per cent, delivering 2024 million units.

In Value terms:

•Value growth is effectively zero. In the short term the world market will grow by 1.5 per cent in volume and will fall by 3 per cent in value in long term. This is because of :

-continuing downwards price pressure from retailers in USA and Europe,

-elimination of tariff and quota barriers to low cost imports from the developing world

Denim Market In India

•Approx. 79 % of the jeans sold in India are tagged with a label, the rest by tailors and localized manufacturers.

•The menswear obtains a majority share of the Indian market with around 75 per cent, women’s wear at around 15 per cent and kids wear at around 10 percent. (This is because the Indians are still very conservative with most of the denim wear in women’s segment being worn in the cities )

•Domestic Market sells approx 300 million metres/ annum: Domestic denim market of India is huge and growing . The per capita consumption of jeans in India is, however, only about 0.3 jeans per person p.a.

•Where as export of denim fabrics is around 170 -180 million metres/ annum.

Indian Domestic Denim Market

Denim Fabric Selling Centre

Sales/Month (In Million Mtrs.)

Sales/Annum (in Million Mtrs.)

Ahmedabad

0.6

7.2

Delhi &Nearby

10

120

Mumbai

6

72

Ulhasnagar

3

36

Kolkatta

2.5

30

Bellari

0.5

6

Indore

0.3

3.6

Others

1

12

Total

23.9

286.8

The domestic denim market in India consumes about 300 million mtrs of denim currently and at a 10% CAGR , can reach about 530 million mtrs in 2015.

The Spirit Of Denim Like You Have Never Seen Before.

And , here are some uncoventional product possibilities from Denim to keep you thinking..